


Hold ourselves together with our arms around the stereo

by crimsonkitty



Category: Mumford & Sons (Band)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, an overly long title
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 05:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8237168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonkitty/pseuds/crimsonkitty
Summary: At the sound of his name, Winston’s eyes sharpen and focus. His fingers continue their patterned movements though, and Ted can only tilt his head in question, asking silently if everything’s alright.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting on my computer for literally three and a half years and so I'm finally just posting it because it's done and there's nothing left for me to fix, no matter what I keep telling myself. It started out as a thought exercise on safe spaces and feeling safe when you're hurt and that's pretty much what it ended up as. So please enjoy. Written pre-long haired Winston lmao. Title from "Apartment Story" by The National.

Ted yawns and scrubs harshly at his eyes, letting the world swim circles around him. The frayed notebook in his lap stays insistently blank, like a particularly carnivorous beast. Familiar pre-show flutters of his stomach stay tucked away like background noise as he idly wonders if he should’ve left the stupid thing at the bottom of his duffel, for all the good it’s doing him. 

He is giving serious thought to stuffing the notebook down the back of the couch when Winston steps through the open doorway across the room.

“Hey,” Ted nods in his direction, pulling the plastic cap out of his mouth. 

Feet scuffle at the metal edges of the frame, boot heels absentmindedly scraping against it in whatever beat Winston keeps in his head. There’s a hand braced on the outdated yellow paint.

“We almost up?” Ted asks him, scratching at the side of his beard. He hasn’t shaved in a while and it’s starting to itch like he’s got sandpaper for skin. 

Winston stares blearily back at him, biting at his lip and squinting with hazy brown eyes over Ted’s shoulder. His jeans are torn, ripped almost to the knee, and he looks for all the world like a poster child of good and bad decisions. Ted wonders if he’s high as he watches fingers drum nervously against pockets, nails cracked and a plaster on his little finger. Except for the grimace that steals its way across Winston’s face a second later. 

“Win,” he calls out softly. 

At the sound of his name, Winston’s eyes sharpen and focus. His fingers continue their patterned movements though, and Ted can only tilt his head in question, asking silently if everything’s alright. Winston sighs, and shakes his head, hair floundering over his forehead and ears in a useless attempt at escape. 

He moves slowly, pushing away from the door and shuffling his way across the ugly carpet until knobbly knees bump into Ted’s. Ted thinks he’s going to sit beside him, maybe glance at the notebook in his lap and laugh obnoxiously, because Winston’s never had a problem with words. 

Win doesn’t do either of those things. Instead, he climbs onto the couch on all fours and drops himself sideways across Ted’s lap, wrapping himself bodily around Ted’s stomach until there are knees digging into one side and a face buried between couch and ribs on the other. 

“Win, what-” Ted asks, startled, his arms wrapping instinctively around Winston’s back.

“Head hurts,” he answers, voice muffled against the wool of Ted’s coat. His voice is strained, held tight as he curls even harder into himself. New black boots he’d been so pleased with are tucked up against the armrest, light reflecting off the scuff marks they’ve already earned. 

“You want me to-”

“No.”

It’s sharp and hot and muttered between grinding teeth, but the wavering undercurrent of doubt has Ted only nodding his head and saying, “Okay.”

He puts a hand on Winston’s side and rubs gently where the shirt has ridden up, fingers moving in mild patterns against over-heated skin. The shirt is blue and loose on his skinny frame, twisting up underneath and bunching at his back. Ted is almost sure it’s the same shirt he managed to lose out of his duffel a couple months ago. Lost to the starving, cavernous undersides of hotel beds, he’d thought.

Slowly, he feels Winston begin to relax, breathing evening out into steady rises of his shoulders that are no longer tense. Head dipping until it rests on the curve of Ted’s hip and goes still.

Ted goes back to his notebook, but keeps his hand soft and where it is. 

Half an hour later, when Ted is doodling words and broken hearts in the margins and Winston hasn’t moved except tiny twitches in his knees and elbows and a hand clutched low in Ted’s shirt, Ted feels a hand settle on the back of his neck with an affectionate squeeze. 

“Everything alright?” Marcus asks, voice low and concerned, crouching down on the dusty floor. Ted hadn’t heard him come in.

“Headache,” Ted whispers back. “I think he’s asleep.” 

“Kay,” Marcus nods, looking down at the huddled figure. “We’re up in twenty.”

“Alright.” 

With one last ruffle of Ted’s hair, Marcus walks out of the room, hand reaching up to brush the top of the doorway, quiet clicks of his feet fading down the hall. 

Ted doesn’t move for another ten minutes, watching the clock over Winston’s shoulder. It ticks quietly and at an angle, so that the eleven is pointing up. 

“Win. Hey.” He puts a hand against the small of his back, shaking gently, and his other hand in Winston’s hair in what he hopes is a comforting gesture. “Hey, come on.” 

He can feel Winston stirring, mumbling and nuzzling deeper into the warm space he’s made for himself in Ted’s lap. Finally his head turns, one eye blinking blearily up at him. 

“Fuck,” he says before turning his head back into Ted’s side with a small noise. 

“I know. I’m sorry,” Ted says, running his fingers against Winston’s scalp and tapping gently. “We’ve gotta get up though.”

A small sigh almost like a shudder runs through Winston’s body and he turns over onto his back, long legs kicked over the end of the couch. “Yeah.” 

There’s an arm across his eyes and Ted thinks belatedly that he should’ve asked Marcus to hit the lights on his way out. The switch is on the other side of the room, though, so he settles for patting Win on the stomach and hooking fingers around his side, a meaningless attempt at keeping Winston from falling over.

“You take anything?” he asks, lightly. 

Winston nods, hair shifting against his arm. “Yeah.” 

“When?”

Winston mumbles under his breath for a moment, fingers clenching against his palm, before answering. “Hour ago.”

“Can you open your eyes?” 

“Maybe.” 

The word is huffed and tight and petulant. Ted stops talking.

Winston sighs. “Sorry,” he says, grabbing hold of the hand on his side and squeezing, slipping their fingers together for a moment in apology before sitting up at Ted’s side. Leans his forehead on Ted’s shoulder and stays there, bits of hair drooping over his face and the painful looking twitches in his hands fading until Ted wonders if he’s fallen asleep again.

“Winston,” he says, nudging him as gently as he can.

“Yeah!” Winston jerks up, nearly bashing his head on Ted’s chin. His voice is loud. They both cringe.

“Shit. Sorry,” he says again. He digs both palms into his eyes and yawns. 

“Right!” he says, dropping his hands to his knees before standing and cracking his back. He smacks himself lightly on the face, growling low in his throat like he’s heading into battle, before turning back to Ted. 

“Come on, then.” 

He gives a wicked grin, only the smallest signs of sleep left in the corners of his eyes. Ted tosses his notebook onto the table and follows.

**Author's Note:**

> For the record, I am not British so apologies if I messed up anything in that regard. 
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://kaqueershi.tumblr.com/), shouting about various things on any given day.


End file.
